Sources: Karen Unterreiner is witness for the prosecution

April 16, 2019

Sources tell Frank Report that Karen Unterreiner has turned against Keith Raniere and will likely be called as a witness for the prosecution in case of the US v. Raniere Et Al (Clare Bronfman and Kathy Russell are currently his co-defendants in the case).

With Nancy and Lauren Salzman and Allison Mack becoming witnesses for the prosecution, with numerous DOS slaves and other former members of Nxivm – a cast of Jane Does – preparing to testify against their former leader, it seems appropriate to mention that Karen Unterreiner is likely to be one of the star witnesses.

She was with Raniere for 40 years.

In 1975, Karen was an Honor Student from Enfield High in Manchester, Connecticut. Raniere met her when she moved to the RPI campus as a 17-year-old girl coming to college, her first time away from home, just after her father passed away.

She was his first harem woman.

Maybe the fact that Karen has flipped will suggest to Kathy Russell, who blundered into her present indictment and is still holding out – hoping against hope that her case will be dismissed – that she should make a plea deal.

After all, Karen Unterreiner was Kathy’s boss. If Kathy committed five crimes, Karen did 500.

Now, Karen will likely be testifying against her, saving her own skin. The trial begins on May 7. This time it’s for real. Karen flipped. She flipped long ago.

Karen was the always the smartest one in Nxivm., She may be smarter than Keith and when the feds came to town, that girl was not going to be a fool like Allison, Lauren, Nancy, and the hapless Kathy Russell.

When called to the grand jury, she was not going to play games like “Save the Vanguard” or “Run, Keith, Run” or Hide and Go Plead” – or like Kathy – invoke the 5th selectively like it was a game of musical chairs.

She spilled quick and fast. She got an honest attorney – not under Clare Bronfman’s control and now she is spared the inconvenience of handcuffs, ankle monitors, home arrest or facing judges and making allocutions or juries as a defendant.

Karen was always smart. She was one of the women who helped Raniere with his take-home IQ test – the one he used to establish – in the Guinness Book of Records [1989 Australian edition] that he was tied with two others for having the highest IQ in the world.

Of course, the test was bogus. Obviously no take home IQ test should ever be considered official – which is something Guinness figured out later – for they retired the category that year and never had “Highest IQ” as a category again.

On top of that, Keith cheated. He had his women take the test for him. Karen and Gina Hutchinson and a couple of other young women. They did the work on the IQ test. They took about a month to complete it, making sure they got answers right for Keith.

Even after he submitted the test, they found they had one answer wrong and Keith called the man who created the test and would confirm the results and asked him to correct one answer, which he did – which actually got Keith the tie for highest score.

He was almost not the smartest man in the world.

Gina died, and many women from that era left – smelling Keith’s evil, hating him and fearing him, but Karen Unterreiner stayed.

Consider, she came to Keith in the 1970s. Nancy Salzman came in 1998. Kathy Russell 2002. Allison Mack 2006. Clare Bronfman 2002.

Karen had them all beat. She was not only in his inner circle – she was in his inner-inner circle.

Not Allison or Nicki, not Nancy Salzman or Lauren. Or Clare or even Barbara Bouchey.

The real inner-inner circle – the ones who knew everything – were the women who were with Keith before he was Vanguard. Karen was first in and last to leave.

Keeffe ran away with her child in February 2014. She then turned on the monster, giving incredibly valuable evidence of his crimes to law enforcement and the public.

Jeske died of cancer in September 2014 – while under Raniere’s treatment – and left her estate to him.

Pam Cafritz died of cancer in November 2016 – also while under Raniere’s treatment – and left her estate to him.

That left only Unterreiner.

When Raniere fled to Mexico in Decemeber 2017 with Clare Bronfman, followed by Allison, Nicki Clyne, Lauren and joined by Loretta Garza, Mariana Fernandez and others, Karen – who had been relegated to old hag status – wasn’t going to stick around and wait for handcuffs.

She did what any smart woman would do – she flipped. She did not – after 40 long years with the monster – stick to him.

Of course, now, no one wants to stick to the monster. It is refreshing to see all this self-interest at play. Even Clare Bronfman, who has “seen so much good from Nxivm and from Keith”, is ready to flush her Vanguard down the toilet – if she needs to – to save herself.

You’ll see more of this at play soon enough.

But Karen was a lot smarter than these other women; smart in self-interest too.

Karen has a lot of information and will share it. I think Karen will serve best for the jury when she explains that Raniere was a long time, lifetime pedophile.

She knows about Raniere’s exploits with underage girls – going back to the 1970s. She knows because she aided and abetted him. She knows about Gina H. and Gina M. and Rachel and the other teen girls. She was living with Raniere as his girlfriend. She helped recruit teens and because they were too young to drive, she would drive them home to their parents after Raniere was done and it was their curfew.

How clever it was of Keith to have a kindly-looking woman take the teen girls home. This way the parents thought they were chaperoned by a fine adult woman and not leaving their children alone with the world’s smartest man.

This way there was no suspicion that Keith was fucking their teenage daughters.

Karen would pick them up and take them to the apartment she and Keith, then go to work (someone had to pay the bills) and Keith would have his teenage harem during the day.

Then Karen would come home from work. The girls would put their clothes back on and Karen would drive them home to their parents in time for their curfews.

Karen – next to Pam Cafrtiz – was the best pimp-woman a pervert ever had.

And a decade later, Karen was still living with Keith and Pam and Barb Jeske when Keith was raping 12-year-old Rhiannon.

Karen can testify to that – just in case anyone is thinking Keith will try to claim he was not a longstanding pedophile. Or that Jane Doe #2 – the 15-year-old Mexican girl – whose nude pictures were found on his computer – was just an anomaly.

By the way, it was Karen who groomed Jane Doe #2 when she was just 14 and mentored her, assuring her that her underage sex with Keith was actually women’s empowerment.

In addition to knowing about his pedophilia, Karen knows about finances too.

Karen oversaw the double and triple sets of books. Maybe she is the only one who knows – really knows – how much money Nxivm made. And how much was hidden, how much was smuggled.

And don’t forget Karen was one of the owners of Consumer’s Buyline that got shut down for being an illegal pyramid scheme. She knows the history of the monster.

In 1996, Raniere, Karen and Pam signed a Consent Order with the New York Attorney General. State officials accused Raniere of operating an illegal “chain distributor scheme.” Raniere, Cafritz and Unterreiner agreed to be permanently barred from “promoting, offering or granting participation in a chain distribution scheme.”

After Consumers Buyline, Karen went to work for Nxivm. On the old ESP website, we learn of Karen’s important roles.

“Karen Unterreiner has been a key figure of Executive Success Programs’ leadership since she joined the company in 1998. She quickly became one of the top practitioners of ESP’s proprietary Exploration of Meaning™ technology. She is currently one of our top three head trainers and facilitates the company’s coveted advanced-level trainings. She has been a proud member of the Executive Board since 2001 and she is also the head of ESP’s Humanities Board, where she strives to further her commitment to building community, humanitarianism and ethics.

“Karen brings a wealth of experience as an actuary, CFO and computer programmer into her role with ESP. She graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1981 with a degree in Mathematics of Operations Research and Statistics. Following that, she held a position at Aetna Life and Casualty as an actuary until 1985. She received her fellowship in the Society of Actuaries in 1987 while working at Milliman and Robertson, Consulting Actuaries.

“She later expanded into corporate finance and in 1990 assumed the role of Chief Financial Officer at Consumers’ Buyline, Inc., a successful wholesale buying club. During which time, she delved into the field of information technology and began an IT consulting practice. Her attention to detail, expansive intellectual capacity and desire to inspire joy in people’s lives makes her an invaluable asset to the company and its Executive Board.”

And she did a hell of lot more than what she put on her modest bio.

Karen had a hand in scrubbing the computers to deceive the courts in the Rick Ross case. And she may the only one who can tell authorities – and a jury – what all the secret codes mean on the Nxivm books showing who paid by cash (when they were listed as getting scholarships) and where the cash went.

Karen spent the last two decades with Nxivm. And two decades before that with the monster in various capacities.

At Nxivm, her responsibilities were IT, finance, and teaching. She took care of NXIVM money. She helped groom little girls.

And Karen proved her worth to Keith, working hand-in-hand with Steve Ose and Ben Myers to change data on NXIVM’s servers regarding the money trail in the company and evidence in NXIVM’s computer trespass case.

“I joined the Ethicist development group to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to make ethical decisions. My experience has gone far beyond that. The Ethicist program has been the most challenging and the most transformative work I have done in my many years with ESP. It has been a study of me, how I make even the tiniest of decisions, and how I can shift those decisions to be more in line with the person I want to be. Even transforming seemingly small, simple decisions have made a big difference in my life. From avoiding hitting the snooze button to speaking up when I think things are not right, the work we are doing has produced significant changes in how I choose.”

Long before Nancy and Lauren decided to ethically turn on Raniere – brought as they were to it only after they were facing prison – Karen – the smartest of them all – decided “Hey, why should I bother to get indicted and go through a living hell. At 58 years old, prison won’t suit me. I’ll cooperate with the feds and avoid the inconvenience.”

Guess who’s not going to prison?

She’s gone to the other side, and rather than take the fall, she is helping to stop the man who stole her life away while sparing herself any legal punishment.

Unlike Nancy, Allison, and Lauren, she was not forced to turn on the man with handcuffs and the threat of spending years in a cage. She figured it out quick – quicker than Raniere.

She realized as soon as the FBI came a-calling that his goose, Nxivm’s goose, everyone’s goose was cooked. Except for hers.

If she has her way, it will appear as if she never knew Keith Raniere.

Karen’s Facebook makes no mention of her years with Nxivm. She lists as her employment Con Carino LLC.

Yeah, she was the smartest.

For Kathy and Allison, Lauren, Nancy, and even the imbecilic bully, Clare Bronfman – they will be lumped forever with the monster – and one of his longtime monster enablers Karen will likely be in court telling about all the little girls he tricked and raped and how she covered up for him – and how Kathy and Clare and likely Allison knew too.

And though she was the first one in, the longest in his harem, and stayed right until the collapse – she still lives at 3 Flintlock Lane – the townhouse she bought with Raniere in the late 1980s – she was wise enough to get out fast.

And now, if she helps the prosecution bury Keith Raniere, does that expiate all the years of coverup and co-conspiracy with him?

These are matters far beyond man-made laws.

As far as the law is concerned, she seems quite safe.

While others were branded, she slipped under the table.

Karen Unterreiner had a most important role in running Raniere’s MLM and tax evasion and sex trafficking scheme that included Nancy and Lauren Salzman, Allison Mack, Kathy Russell, Clare Bronfman, and Keith Raniere.

About the author

Frank Parlato

Frank Report’s founder and lead writer Frank Parlato is one of the internet’s most decorated investigative journalists. His writing and investigations have helped expose major criminal organizations and scandals.

Frank’s work has been cited in major publications all over the world, including The New York Times, New York Post, The Daily Mail, VICE News, CNN, Rolling Stone, and more.

He is also the publisher and editor-in-chief of Artvoice, The Niagara Falls Reporter, Front Page and the South Buffalo News.

Personally, I am very happy that Karen U is working with the DOJ.
1. It was Pam who got Keith Raniere his young girls, Karen was too busy actually doing work
2. Karen was put on the back burner a very long time ago as she grew too old for Keith Raniere
3. Did Karen do illegal crimes? Pretty sure she did, but if she can be a witness for all the bad shit Keith and Clare did and seal the deal, GIVE HER, HER WALKING PAPERS. She pretty harmless without Raniere around
4. The DOJ needs people like Karen to take down the ones in power who would not stop until the DOJ took them down.
5. She can finally move on with her life and build something positive for herself. She’s smart

Was Pam Cafritz involved with Raniere early enough to have done all the procuring of young women, or did some of that happen in a period when only Karen Unterreiner was around?

Certainly, Unterreiner at least went along with whatever strange polygamous* arrangements were going on – including the young and underage women, and then Cafritz as well.

* If it can even be called that – it seems to have been such a dysfunctional and pathological mess, particularly with the pedophilia, that perhaps there’s a better name. When I was in grad school I overlapped with some circles very similar to Raniere’s in Clifton Park back in that era, including some people experimenting with polygamy, and while it seems to me that’s an arrangement that’s inherently messy, at least the people I knew tried to approach it thoughtfully and respectfully.

Well shit while we are at it, rationalizing that the women perpetrators were all victims to a degree, let’s have some empathy for Keith Raniere too. He’s a victim of his own mind and parents that were complacent with his feelings of grandeur, not to mention all the supportive and unquestioning females. Is it any wonder he thought of himself as The Vanguard?

This is all sarcasm of course. Yes, slow boiling frog, impressionable, trusting, etc but at some point many made the conscious choice to act criminally not only for misplaced beliefs but for their own benefit and reward.

Sure, but….I wonder if the girls at RPI like Karen had responded to Keith’s moves with, “Get lost, creep, and take your bullshit with you,”…maybe ESP, NXIVM and DOS would never have happened. And maybe Keith today would be just a fat, lonely old fart jerking off to Smallville reruns.

He was already looking for vulnerable women back then. KAR targeted people who had been through trauma or were struggling – those who wouldn’t have the experience to recognize a sociopath. He wouldn’t waste his time on someone who could see through his false front. He has always been an abuser; he’s just gotten bolder and more grandiose and more vile over the years. And who knows where the escalation would have ended. He must have been filled with fury that he was losing the ability to bamboozle young virgins as he aged. When you’re closer to “grandpa” age than “young lover” age, the youngsters are gonna see you as a father figure. His old techniques weren’t having the same effect – hence… Slavery and branding!

Of all the highest profile women, including celebrities, who did he make a move on? Other than Allison Mack, who else did he have sex with? Kristin Kreuk? Grace Park? That chick from Terminator who is said to have had his child. Presumably Nicki Clyne.

Deception presupposes an agent that willfully fools another with some ulterior motive using an expectation that the latter desires as bait, where the expectation only matters to the deceiver in so far as it garners what they desire. It implies a lack of sincerity. In other words, intention of the heart is crucial.

Trust always takes a variably sized leap of faith.

However, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame of me.”

If a person persists in following the deceiver even though he realizes that he was fooled, then he has no one but himself to blame. He can no longer claim being a victim. If he willfully engages in actions that further the agenda of the deceiver then he becomes a perpetrator. How much a person can be proportionately classified as perpetrator/victim can only be assessed on an individual case-by-case basis, and must be done holistically by analyzing both his/her actions and psychology to determine intent.

I think the trick is, that cunning deceivers can then continue to effectively deceive victims about the fact that they’ve been deceived to begin with, so that the victims can in fact be fooled twice, thrice, and more. There are powerful cognitive biases around commitment and ignorance, that can make it hard for people to recognize and admit that they’ve been deceived, and which the deceivers exploit to keep the deceptions going on.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame of me.” is an over-simplification – particularly in some cases. But reading the paragraph that follows that quote, perhaps you recognize that in at least some cases, it’s not that straightforward.

We recognize, for instance, in domestic violence, that it’s much more complex than knowing “where the door is,” so to speak.

While that may be true, Mitch, what do you say to the case here where some of these victims-cum-abusers were deliberately put under very, extremely, extraordinary circumstances before resorting to abetting or perpetrating the same abusive, “criminal” behavior perpetrated on themselves?

What do you say to the victim-cum-abusers like Allison Mack, who never gained but lost everything and became completely dependent in every way on KAR and the cult to meet her basic physical, emotional, financial, social, etc. needs?

And wasn’t Karen Unterreiner perhaps in the same position 20 – 30 years ago as Allison Mack is today?

And how do you ever break that chain — that well-known pattern of criminality born of abuse and deprivity — when here with NX we have perpetrators — the NX leadership — CAPITALIZING on that very phenomenon to the astounding degree NXIVM did and will continue to if not truly ended. All perpetrators need be told and judged individually on the actually facts and consideration of true circumstances affecting each, if you ask me.

Hi Yolanda. It looks like once again you have been disappointed by the actions of someone close to Raniere. How sad that must be for you. It looks like, when push came to shove, Raniere does not inspire all that much loyalty.

You and your part time lover have been BOHICA once again
Bend Over Here It Comes Again
It’s Keith Raniere’s karma, baby

He has spent most of his life fucking people over and now it’s time for the “what goes around, comes around” show

It’s really swell that many of us get to witness his karma now that it is showing up.

We get to enjoy watching his karma happen to him, we don’t have to do “another life” with his kind of BS and we know what the heck is going on in the here and now.

The Smart Rats have jumped ship and ran over to the ship of freedom – The USS – DOJ

The Stupid Rats, so far, have either taken a plea deal or are holding out hope that their super expensive lawyers will be able to outwit the DOJ at trial. They are holding out hope they will be able to take the acquitted bus home to rejoin you and the other sheep Pea Brain.

Karen was always the smartest one out of the bunch (unlike the other five idiots who are facing time for their Master)
She was smart enough to not have his child – no little KAR’s to have to deal with
She was smart enough to distance herself enough so she didn’t get cancer that killed her like Pam or Barb J
She was smart enough when the ship started to sink, to row her boat safely over to the DOJ, so no prison time for her

Question is what would you do Pea if you were arrested and facing 20 – 40 years behind bars? Would you stand by your Vanturd or take the freedom bus? It’s easy to sit at home on your nice comfy coach calling people names who want their freedom from this bastard.

I agree that it’s fortunate the there is such a long-term insider as Unterreiner available, and apparently cooperating.

Also, hopefully some journalist or author will do a thorough job investigating back to Raniere’s early days and trying to put together an accurate account of how Raniere and his organizations evolved, which would probably provide more insight than the court cases are ever going to reveal. Unterreiner would be one of the prime sources for that, hopefully, and particularly since Cafritz is gone.

The curious case of Flattop Mike former mafia associate is an example of using a plea bargain to learn about a missing person case. In fact rather ironically Flattop Mike’s case happened right in the same court house.

Yes, would like to know more about the suicides above all. There is still so much buried in the past and yet it may never get resolved – namely, who fucked with Keith’s head that he developed so many insecurities about himself than led him to become a pathological liar.

Wondering how, after knowing and assuming they believe this, the people that are left as “believers” or Nxivm activists can justify or say and think about Karen U being a witness and key factor against K.R. and Nxivm altogether….? What are they going to say to themselves and amongst after this… I’m just in awe every time something is revealed how they are able to justify and come up with ways to just keep going and defending Keith and all the harm , especially in Mexico!!! Tell us Edgar!! Let us know Omar, Marcelo, Carmenchu, .. please help us understand your rational minds and maybe allow some light into your deep souls and realize it was all wrong to support him in such ways as we all did!! Maybe it’s time to let go and assume we were wrong. Stop betting on that dollar you feel like it’s your whole life… it’s not what you are!! You deserve better and there is better!! We were all told many many lies and we believed them and that is real. Just stop and let go !! You have no good future with all those concepts because they started off with a lie from a twisted mind. It can’t be noble, it can’t be good just because it did not come from good intent. Open your eyes and your soul… it gets better and I’m sure your families will support you.

You don’t have to continue with all this nonsense. You are NOT helping make a better world with this. It’s not good! It does not save time or effort and it does not move humanity forward. It really does NOT! It’s not bad to accept we were in a cult (secta) and that we were fooled for years. It hurts… yes but it’s real. No more lies, no more pretend, no more sashes that were just given out regarding your level of obedience and loyalty to “the mission”… just stop. Read the books, watch the videos, go get the info on how we were all influenced little by little and agreed to all those concepts of “ethics” and then used as tools to keep us obedient and mind restrained. It does get better I assure you!!

Yes, you who are still in!! I’m talking to you. You know who you are… just let go… do the right thing in life…

THIS is exactly the Karen I recall and always knew would one day be recognized as the true “genius” behind the sham of a man she fell in love with at 17.

Love the double entendre, Ms. “Carino” — con meaning “with” in Spanish or con as in con artistry? Works either way. And I still love U2, too.

Hmmm, what you gotta ask yourself, counselors, is this: Did she or didn’t she make a back-up drive of which puters and, if so, when?

Btw, Karen was, I believe, 1 of only 141 females accepted and was at the top of her RPI — the most lauded engineering school in the Nation — graduating class of something like 2500. …For anyone out there feeling stupid that they ever fell for a lying idiot like KAR you’re in good, persuasive company.

They’re a good school, a ways down the list, bested by the engineering programs at Cornell, Columbia, and Cooper Union just in New York state alone, according to what I could tell from a quick look at a couple of rankings. US News has them at 49th among national universities, with a 43% acceptance rate that is not very selective – MIT, for instance, is 8%.

I just read a complaint on another thread about posters who fail to answer questions and I’m finding some I must have missed like this one. Apologies.

Karen U. is the longest standing victim to my knowledge. Pretty amazing she’s still standing by comparison to the fate of too many others. I don’t think she was the first.

I recall Gina talking about a girl said to be prior to Karen from KAR’s early RPI days named “Lily” or “Leila” who had to get restraining orders against Keith claiming he was reportedly stalking, harassing and threatening her for years. Of course, Keith had put a twist on the story — in his version she was “Glen Close” from Fatal Attraction — the one threatening him not vice versa.

Please keep in mind that this is all hearsay passed along from KAR – a lying sociopath. There are no records of a restraining order on my part – he sent a group of 2 or 3 young women to my home once with some story about a project they were doing. I realized what was going on from the questions they were asking – only Keith would have been interested in the answers. I told them to go talk to him and phoned him when they left. I told him to never send his little minions after me again, and it’s quite possible I threatened to get a restraining order if he did. I don’t remember exactly what I said at this point – that was over 30 years ago. This occurred at least a year after I had left him; I haven’t heard from him since; and I’m quite comfortable with that.

I contribute here when I think I have something relevant to say. I gave the FBI my whole story. The rest of my life is private and I prefer it stay that way.

I remember Karen as being quiet, unassuming, extremely nice, bland (in that she didn’t try to be noticed), came across as shy, did not come across as intelligent (although I now know she’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met), in no way/shape/or form threatening, and somehow seemed cheery and simultaneously sad.

Why would Karen escape unscathed?
No business would hire her for fear of the fallout from bad pr.
Her testimony, of aiding, abetting and grooming under age sex partners will make decent folk avoid her though Bill, Hillary and Jeffrey will embrace her.
Does one honestly think her neighbors will invite her to a bbq? Or allow their daughters in her company once it is known what she testifies to?
Prison comes in many fashions.

Karen is brilliant and could easily figure out a way to earn money – if she somehow doesn’t already have millions stashed away. She probably doesn’t care to hang out with her neighbors. She’ll be fine. Way better off than the KAR prison she’s been confined to since she was 17.

G – If I’m not mistaken, you once said bringing politics into the comments section was detracting from the discussion. Maybe you should give equal credit to the Republicans who would embrace Karen as well. Might as well start by adding Trump to the top of the list since he loves grabbing women by their pussies.

It’s ridiculous to claim that some particular political grouping would embrace her. She’d have to come up with some compelling story of redemption for anyone prominent to want to associate with her, and different possibilities would appeal to different constituencies – being “born again,” like some of the Manson girls, is perhaps the most common one for criminals, though presumably she could cast herself as some sort of victim and rights advocate as well.

Which is a reminder, if there is any legitimate political angle to this, it’s that cults or high control groups, particularly the ones operating under cover of “religion” but also extending to secular ones like NXIVM, get away with much of what they do because legislators and political leaders have not wanted to crack down on abusive and exploitative groups, for fear that the prosperity gospel ministers and authoritarian religious groups who are the darlings of their own political followings, could be next. There are lots of religious groups or cults getting away with much the same sort of things as NXIVM, and in some cases far worse, and they’re spread out from California to the bastions of the deep South.

Karen U. flipping at the beginning has been assumed all along, as we never heard anything about her. Assuming she did flip early, what is curious is why did the DOJ apparently make a comprehensive deal with her so early? Why did they not wait a while to ensure she was not a key person in the criminality? Did she flip even sooner than anyone thinks, such as when the “branding” story came out? Or even before that?

Too many close, powerful witnesses for KAR’s defense to overcome. He will need to plead out.

Maybe, he can trade off information about Albany County DA Soares, Albany attorneys and NYSP Rodger Kirsop and others? It’s more important if the people at the top that enabled this are brought to justice.

Your description of her as an accomplice in Raniere’s pedophilia is creepy and chilling.. It reminds me of Karla Homolka feeding teenage victims including her own sister, to her monster psychopath husband – and she herself turned out to be a sexually warped killer as well, though she tried to shift all the blame onto him and fooled a lot of people initially.

Along with that, Unterreiner was apparently the orchestrator of much of NXIVM’s ongoing criminality, at least as far as the dirty work of evading taxes and the law.

It all leaves me wondering if Unterreiner isn’t another psychopath. If she did so much to enable Raniere’s crimes, isn’t she in some ways nearly as guilty?

I believe she merely went along with him. Remember that he started working on her when she was only 17, right after the loss of a parent. Talk about impressionable. Whatever she did in the past, she has now done the absolute right thing. I suspect that when she talked to the feds (whether she went to them or vice versa), she held back nothing. Thank you, Karen.

I met her (and KAR and Pam) in the early 90s. She seemed extremely soft-spoken and shy. I believe he had control over her. I think he could have convinced her and his other “inner circle” gals of anything. Even that there should be no age of consent for sweet, gentle, mentoring Keith.

Now, yet another or Raniere’s betrayals has come back to bite him. He tossed her aside – one would think he would have cherished her for her friendship, support and loyalty over 40 years. But no; KAR doesn’t do that.

I suspect he got Karen for her intelligence and ability to work – she probably funded the town house. The he got Pam, and others for their money. Then he got Nancy to lend credibility to the NXIVM classes. After all, who would take “success” classes from someone who never actually worked, and whose only prior business was closed down as a fraud?

Good points – and thanks for that insider insight. Reflecting on my original comment, I was wondering if I shouldn’t have mentioned the possibility that she was sort of a long-term victim herself, given how young she was when she fell under Keith’s sway, and that she’d never known anything else – plus it’s possible that she came from a troubled home. But that also doesn’t necessarily excuse her, and the law probably wouldn’t, since she had so long to look around her and reflect on breaking laws continually.

The extent to which she apparently procured underage girls for him, still really troubles me. I can understand that some adults choose to have open or polyamorous relationships, and that some find “cuckold” type situations somehow attractive – but with other consenting adults. Did she somehow think that it was good for the girls, or did she know, and justify, that it was just feeding Raniere’s desires?

It reminds me that, improbably, Raniere somehow managed to run a sort of mini FLDS for yuppies and hipsters.

I would venture a guess that he convinced her and others that it was “good” for the girls. Like, “What an honor and a privilege to be gently introduced to sex by a sincere, patient and intelligent mentor – rather than by a careless teenager in the back of a car?”

I would also assume that he convinced her and others that it was morally correct to shield the group’s income from taxation – this way the “ethical people” would be in control of more money. His goal to control as much of the world’s money as possible has been openly stated.

How hilarious is it that with all of the group’s stashing away cash, KAR did not manage to flee to a non-extradition country before arrest. And as another poster pointed out, if he wanted to freely bed young girls, he could have done so legally in certain parts of Mexico.

I think pleasing him was imperative to Karen because it was the only way she remained relevant to him. Helping him pull new sex partners even if they were underage; assisting him in hiding money; basically backing anything he wanted to do – all of it meant he would eventually return to her because she was loyal and persisted. I don’t think she thought about those young girls at all beyond how they would assist her in keeping him mollified.

The erosion of his attachment to her through age and the accumulation of more socially valuable and wealthy people, and the threat of finally being caught for her own participation in his crap was what drove her to protect herself by going to the Feds before they came to her. She is very intelligent and, in the end, very self-serving. If her immunity is what it takes to see KAR stopped and put away, so be it – but I’m sure there are many left behind who were damaged in her wake.

One can be attractive and intelligent and still be struggling with other issues (past trauma, social difficulties, just plain young naivety) – that’s who he targets. He listens; he offers compassion and sympathy; he seems to love you and acts the part of a nice guy all while he is looking for the psychological keys to unlock you and then trap you. He’s a typical Malignant Narcissist with a false front for every situation. People fall for it because he specifically looks for people who will fall for it.

You’re right of course. My observations are decades old, but then he came across as a gentle, intelligent, personable and soft spoke person. I didn’t see anything particularly attractive about him physically. In those days he was short and chubby with a dreadful bowl haircut. To each his own, I guess. Women routinely fall in love with less-than-attractive men because of their (perceived) intelligence, kindness or spirit. Women see what they want to see. That’s why sociopathic chameleons like KAR are so dangerous. They will be whoever you need them to be.